Jonathan Archer: Boldly Go #atozchallenge Day Ten

Captain’s Log: April 12, 2016

Still using the timeline as it exists. This story follows precedes Enterprise, approximately April 13, 2151. Spoilers for Season One, Episode One: “Broken Bow”.

These are the fan fiction voyages of the starship Enterprise (NX-01), the first Warp Five capable Terran craft. Humans are now able to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go….

I don’t own Enterpriseor her crew. No monetary profit is gained from these stories.I just want to share my passion for these characters and their world.

T’Pol has been assigned to observe a meeting between Vulcans and Starfleet officers. She was intended to remain silent, but, caught in a pheromone release, she impulsively speaks to Jonathan Archer.

If you enjoy today’s story, and want more, click on the title, and find a new frontier – what happens after today’s story!

T’Pol had given no warning that she would engage in conversation with Jonathan Archer. Protocol and his own directives placed her in the role of observer. Conversing with humans was a skill that required a great deal of practice; typically, an attache would spend several months witnessing before attempting it.

He had selected T’Pol for his staff because she was the infant who had dared to touch the flame. That implied an intrinsic need to understand; she might take risks that weren’t precisely logical, but would certainly provide valuable insight into this complex and highly emotive species.

His attache’s response to the human’s question was succinct; well within acceptable parameters. That Archer responded with another angry question was wholly expected; he seemed willing to hold all Vulcans responsible for his father’s inability to advance his engine design sufficiently before his death.

Soval focused on his breathing until he was able to suppress his own unwanted response. He was too near pon farr not to be affected by the involuntary pheromone releases that were characteristic of early telerotic awakening.

T’Pol lifted her chin and answered the human’s challenge. Fascinating – she met Archer’s stare directly, projecting presence in a manner that a human male would respond to.

Soval was aware of an elevation in his own respiratory and circulatory systems. A tingling in his fingertips urged him to draw nearer to her, to feel her bioelectric signature….

T’Pol’s next response to Jonathan Archer was correct, despite the further violation of protocol.

The human starship captain responded by intimating a desire to physically harm T’Pol. She said nothing more, only made a slight shift in her facial expression that his observations suggested were readily understood as acknowledgment among humans.

She gave no indication that it would almost certainly be impossible for Archer to accost her. Even without her superior strength and reflexes, she would prove a formidable opponent.

T’Pol remained still as the conversation deteriorated in the manner most attempts to guide humans seemed to.

Her elevated pheromone production quickly saturated the air in the small waiting area, and provoked his own inevitable response. Though he was long mated, and T’Pol a relative; he couldn’t fully repress his reaction to the powerful telerotic awakening of a female Vulcan.

He raised his voice to Maxwell Forrest when it was decided that Enterprise would return the Klingon. While Soval knew his human associate would forgive the lapse, he found it, and his awareness of T’Pol, distressing.

They must vacate the chamber. While not the ideal resolution, it supported the arrangement he had with Maxwell: Jonathan Archer’s hostility toward the Vulcan people had been harnessed for the benefit of his own species.

There was a danger in his decision to place T’Pol on Enterprise as an adviser and observer of this first Terran deep-space mission. While Archer’s responses to her proved that he was unaware of her awakening, and so was not the catalyst for it; T’Pol’s proved just as definitively that it had indeed been a human male that had precipitated her maturing telerotic state. Her use of human kinesthesiology was conclusive.

On Enterprise, she would be vulnerable in a way few Vulcans were. It was quite possible that their behavior would influence her own, in ways she wouldn’t be aware of and couldn’t guard herself against.

Protocol prevented him from addressing the topic; reproductive privacy was a fundamental Vulcan right. Soval considered all he knew of this young woman, including the seven times she had left the compound unescorted and in violation of protocol. He weighed the risks and benefits for her, for humans, and for the Vulcan people.

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.”

Logical – but it wasn’t logic that made the decision. It was Soval’s desire to honor the infant who had touched the flame.

For an added treat, visit other blogs on the #atozchallenge roster. There is a huge diversity to choose from, and I think that’s something T’Pol would find most agreeable, indeed.

Published by shanjeniah

I am myself. I own my life, and live with three other people who own theirs. My intention is to do only those things that bring me joy, and to give myself wholly to those things I do.
Writing has been my passion throughout my life, and this will become the home for my writing life...because it brings me great joy!
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